Artists Investigate the Environment

Resilience: An Artist Residency

Nestled in Camino, at the edge of the El Dorado National Forest, the Institute of Forest Genetics houses an arboretum, several cabins, and a team of researchers dedicated to the study of our forests. During the fall of 2018, it played host to something quite different: an ambitious, cross-disciplinary arts and education program centered on the evocative concept of “resilience”.

Organized by El Dorado Arts Council, the Resilience Project housed resident artist Kim Abeles in an IFG cabin, where she worked with the students of Independence High School to develop an artistic project that examined and reflected upon the idea of “resilience” in all its complexity—as a scientific phenomena, as a philosophical concept, and as a way of living.

Upon completion, the students’ work was be publicly displayed alongside the work of Kim Abeles in Placerville at Confidence Lab on Main Street.

Resilience was funded in part by El Dorado Savings Bank, the Teichert Foundation, the Society of American Foresters
and the National Endowment for the Arts.